Open 908: Mafia PT

[Klick]

There is no rule 29!

Hope you're doing alright, it's been a while. Let's have some fun

Most people consider me a player that is fairly easy to read. My goal is to shift that expectation. I'm going to try to have some influence in the main goings-on, really get involved with this one. To do that, I'm going to do my best to relax and have fun.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about how you like to play Mafia!

[Klick]

Yes! I love basically everything about the show and could talk about it for ages. I've never connected with the vibe of a show quite as well.

Let's go with 'light-but-effective coordination' then, that works for my style too. I think scum players are probably at their best when they're comfortable and ready to get stuck in.

I get bored as scum too, when I'm not anxious. My plan to avoid that is to try to develop the thread conversation so that there's always something to engage with.

[Klick]

Don't know if you followed the queue thread, but some people think there are some pretty strong players in this game. People generally have a perception of me as a solid town player, but mediocre scum player. But in this game I'm going to prove them wrongggg~

Bingle is very mech-minded. He's terrifying when he draws scum. So people will be paranoid of him. They should do that without our prompting.
Implosion is logical, tends to wallpost occasionally. Also known for a strong scum game, same as Bingle.
Black is ALSO a strong scum player. We can let these people all be paranoid of each other! Black is more impulsive and vibes-based. She has a tendency to tunnel and will often lean towards suspicion of people over finding townreads.
Dannflor is insane as town and scum haha

[Klick]

I think we're doing it right lmao

[Klick]

Don't worry. You're doing fine.

Pretend I'm stubborn town. My goal is to be ignored by the thread somewhat. I'm hoping that people think my read is a stretch and decide they want to explore elsewhere.

I think we're in a reasonable spot regardless of what actually happens today. Just play towards a town mindset like you have been already. Dann scared us earlier but we're alright

[Klick]

We're not actually the scumteam, you see; the scumteam is somewhere within the pool of players that are quite hard to read in this game
There are too many juicy players that could be scum for it to be us, right?

[Klick]

Trust these townies to find the actual scumteam of Dann/Black or whatever

[Klick]

I'd recommend basically ignoring the pressure on you, or giving it a one-off comment if you think that'd be more appropriate. And then just catch up how you'd normally do, give some thoughts and direction to your thoughts, and people should hopefully just go 'hmm maybe this is the wrong track'.

If you do go over today I don't feel terrible about our odds, but I also think it's very avoidable

[Klick]

Keep in mind that the biggest chunk of the pressure comes from me. It's an illusion. If you're plausibly towny, it can disappear.

[Klick]

I think the best response to worst's thoughts / the general pressure probably boils down to 'it was Page 7, let me cook'

You could probably spin your vote on me as a bit more exploratory than legitimately suspicious on that basis

[Klick]

With time, the pressure is slightly more tangible. But I don't think it's a lost cause by any means

If you can get into the right mindset to give a few thoughts and engage with people, we can probably turn today into a N_M or implosion elim

[Klick]

I was quite pleased with that vote of confidence haha

I feel like I'm playing this better than usual so far, and I think I can keep it up

[Klick]

However you want to play this is probably fine. You could claim Rolecop, you could claim VT, you could self-hammer

[Klick]

Well, this is looking rough. Might as well just throw in the towel and sur...

No. Not today.

The comeback starts now! Surely this is winnable! Not with fantastic odds, but people have come back from far worse than this.

I'm not in a terrible position all things considered. I think my play towards the end of D1 makes me not that intuitive as a nightkill. I don't think I'm going to get tons of heat. I think there are several players here who are really hard to comfortably townread.

I just need to stay engaged, stay relevant, drive things forward. Spin a story. Express a few townreads based on the ceejay flip, and some likely suspects.

I'm not scum! There's some other scum out there, and I'm ready to find them!

[Klick]

A very vital part of making this winnable is killing a PR tonight

I am notoriously terrible at PR hunting, but I'll do my best

[Klick]

I think there's basically no one in this list who is impossible to mis-eliminate at this point

[Klick]

Klick Plays Don't Second-Guess Scum Flips Based On Weird Thread Dynamics Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

^ is my current plan for thread-opening post

[Klick]

KILL: Bingle

1. Bingle is my best guess for a PR atm (second is implosion) (neither of these are at all confident)

2. Of all the players in this game, the only one I feel I have very little grasp of and don't want near endgame is Bingle. I think I can play around everyone else's tendencies if I try hard enough, but Bingle is a serious threat.

[Klick]

Yessssss

[Klick]

This is the thread that I post in to make me feel like a Goodie in this narrative

Look at me, I'm a Goodie, ready to go catch the Baddies

[Klick]

Oh my god I just realised I have a thread all to myself

I can make people read my rambling thoughts on Mafia theory!!

[Klick]

I often wonder how many people let the broken-down fundamentals of games like this live in their head rent-free to the extent that I've cursed myself with

I feel like most people already have functional answers that they're happy to roll with to questions like 'what kinds of behaviours are

actually

indicative of being scum (or town!)', or 'what actions could town take that

actually

sway town's chances of winning the game'

I have

ideas

about these things on an overarching level, but I'm more often asking myself these questions in-the-moment during a Mafia game

This probably helps me stay sharp on reads that might otherwise not be found, but it also makes me inconsistent and reveals that I have no clue what I'm doing half the time

I'm content with that though - I feel like I have a much better idea of what I'm doing than I did even five years ago, when I was Bad At Mafia

[Klick]

God being town is infinitely more interesting than being scum
Who wants to stare at a completed puzzle all day

I have to consider me being scum as Just A Theory and speculate that there's another truer truth out there just to keep myself engaged

[Klick]

I think nearly everyone massively underappreciates how possible it is to derive completely accurate reads out of seemingly very little information

Just look around the next time you're scum and see what things people do that you think they are clearly only doing as town, even if it looks bad on the surface

Then, instead of going 'well yeah but I'm confbiased', realise that those things are still true even when you're town and someone else is scum

They are very findable, you just have to understand personalities a bit and not fall into traps from strong players
The traps can usually be understood too

[Klick]

ceejayvinoya may no longer post here. Night one begins!

Hello!

How will you handle no-death standoffs? If I choose not to kill N2, and town chooses not to eliminate, how will you resolve the stalemate?

[Klick]

This game has felt super validating for my scum play. Even if I wind up losing this, I feel proud that I've made several intentional decisions that have gotten players like the worst and Dann to townread me.

[Klick]

KILL: Political Clout

Fast Night please!

[Klick]

I think I have several viable endgames here

The biggest problem I have right now is, who do I kill on N3 to make it the least weird that I'm not dead?

[Klick]

There might be credit in leaving PC alive actually to avoid that problem

Maybe I could kill Dann tonight?

[Klick]

I think my best route is voting worst or implosion tomorrow, and then pitching NM as the scum in ELo who didn't choose to kill me

[Klick]

On the other hand, I think Not_Mafia is probably one of my bigger threats in terms of finding me and so I'd be happy with him getting eliminated tomorrow as well

[Klick]

Right. I don't really want to deal with Not_Mafia in ELo, but I also think killing him would point directly to me

What is the most viable death that isn't me?

[Klick]

I probably kill Dann tonight but there's a potential argument for killing the worst

I think I can keep NM and worst as viable scum with a Dann kill; I don't know that I could sell a worst kill coming from someone who isn't me

[Klick]

The idea behind a Dann kill here is that NM is trying to create two possible paths to victory - Dann and the worst townread each other, but I've expressed suspicion on the worst, so I might actually not be the optimal kill in a NM!scum world. The other benefit to NM!scum is that me surviving creates suspicion on me - why didn't I die when I'm a consensus townread? There's rationale that NM could kill Dann to make the worst question why I'm alive.

Whereas with a duck kill, although there's still the rationale of trying to WIFOM suspicion onto me, there's not a clear reason why it would be duck dying instead of me.

There's also benefits based on what people have said in the thread. Worst has the E-1 suspicion on him atm. He has also mentioned the idea of myself or Dann winning easily here by bringing duck and NM, so if duck starts positing me as scum it could look like a setup.

[Klick]

Kill: Dannflor

Fast Night please!